Chapter Eleven
Benedict climbed the stairs slowly, Miss Masters at his side. He was acutely aware of her, of her suspicions and her utter lack of trust in him. But it was her scent that teased and tormented him the most in that moment. She smelled faintly of lilies. It was her soap, he supposed, as he doubted she’d be one to indulge in such fripperies as perfume. As he had no notion of what the going rate was for a companion’s salary, he couldn’t even say that she might have afforded to indulge such a whim even had she been inclined. That sparked a moment of sympathy along with the urge to offer her all the things she could not afford for herself. It would be a disaster and such an offer would likely be tossed back in his face, regardless.
“You are quite fiercely protective of Lady Vale and yet I feel she is not so fond of you as you are of her,” he observed. It was simply a way of breaking the silence between them, and also of stirring the antagonism that existed between them. He had no wish to indulge tender or sympathetic feelings toward her and stirring that particular hornet’s nest would, no doubt, see them well at odds.
Miss Masters halted and faced him. “Lady Vale is sometimes resentful of the fact that her brother-in-law, as a condition of allowing her to maintain a separate household, requires her to have a companion of his choosing. I have tried to make my presence here of as little discomfort to Lady Vale as possible. But in these situations—”
He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest. “You mean situations where she brings some stranger into her home and identifies him as her long lost son? You must admit, Miss Masters, your loyalty aside, that it’s quite mad.”
He’d said it precisely to get a rise from her and it worked. She prickled instantly—shoulders squared, chin inched upward, eyes narrowed. Oh, yes. He’d succeeded admirably in setting her off. If he’d wanted to ensure that they remain at odds, he’d done so admirably.
“Mr. Mason, you will not speak of Lady Vale in that manner. Neither of us can possibly imagine what she has suffered and for you to make light of it—”
“I make light of nothing,” he corrected her. “At this moment, the only person in this world I give two damns about is missing… and if that odd bird in her bright plumage is to be believed, she’s in grave danger.” Benedict had just enough space between himself and the whispered words of Madame Zula to once again find his footing. It wasn’t second sight that had told her that. He didn’t believe that for a minute. No doubt, Mary had said something to her when meeting with the woman. The only information she’d truly offered had been the name of the village. Everything else had been vague and shrouded in carefully articulated mystery.
“Mr. Mason,” Miss Masters began, “I will thank you to tread carefully. Lady Vale is—”
“Mad,” he insisted. The woman was chasing ghosts. “She’s utterly mad. I am not her son… we both know it. And in her heart, I’ve no doubt she does as well!”
“How dare you speak of her so!” Miss Masters hissed. “She has been all that is kind to you… she brought you into this house, obtained the best of doctors for you, and is offering every resource at her disposal to help you locate your sister! And you thank her by offering such uncharitable conjecture about her mental status?”
“I dare because the truth needs to be stated, Miss Masters—Elizabeth!”
She drew herself up in a fit of righteous indignation. Unfortunately for him, her sharply indrawn breath and stiffened shoulders only managed to thrust her rather impressive bosom forward and draw his eye.
“You do not have leave to use my given name, Mr. Mason!” she snapped. “We are not friends or compatriots. You are here because I owe you a debt. But if there is even a hint that you mean to use Lady Vale’s grief against her in some way—”
He’d wanted distance. He’d wanted to put them at odds. He had not accounted for her ability to get under his skin as much as he got under hers. Benedict cursed himself for a fool even as he grasped her wrist and pulled her to him. Her breasts were crushed against his chest and their mouths were scant inches apart. Her eyes widened, her cheeks flamed, and their eyes met. It was all sparks and shooting flames, like the fireworks he’d witnessed as a boy in a distant memory. But even as she looked at him, her cheeks pink with anger, her breasts heaving with short angry breaths, she did not pull away.
“Aren’t you tired of being indignant all the time?” he queried. “Can’t you envision a better use for your lovely lips than dressing me down yet again?”
“I don’t know what you… that is… unhand me, Mr. Mason. This very instant!” she stammered. But as her hands came up to push against his chest, for a moment, she didn’t push him back. Instead, her fingers sank into the firmness of his flesh, seeking and hungry.
“I will… when I’m ready,” he said. “And I’m not ready quite yet.”
The kiss had been intended to teach her a lesson, to put her in her place. The moment their lips touched and he felt the softness of her lips beneath his—tasted the essence that was simply her—all thoughts of anything but the kiss itself fled. It took on a life of its own. His mouth moved over hers and, heaven help him, her lips moved in kind. Pressing against him, testing the contours and firmness of one another’s flesh. It was not a deep kiss, merely a touching of lips. It was no less carnal for it. That simple touch incited his lust like nothing else ever had. That she had responded so readily, so fully, and had kissed him in return with the same degree of ardor was telling. Whoever Miss Masters had been in her previous life, she was not the untutored innocent that some might suspect. When at last the kiss broke, he drew back from her and met her gaze.
There was no fear in her. There wasn’t even any anger or maidenly offense. And she wasn’t shocked. What Benedict saw in her gaze was awareness and anticipation of what would come next. It only confirmed his belief that she had known a man’s touch before. There was a wanton inside her, a creature of passion and unmatched desires, regardless of whatever drab mask she put on.
“I’d ask if I offended your maidenly sensibilities,” he said. “But much to my great pleasure, it appears you have none.”
*
Those words struck her as surely as a physical blow would have. How many years had she struggled to put her hedonistic ways behind her? And all for naught. With nothing more than a touch, he’d reawakened that part of her she’d battled in dormancy.
Elizabeth stepped back. He let her go easily, without protest or reservation. If his fingertips lingered too long, if the soft movement of them over her skin as she retreated hinted at reluctance, he did not show it in any other way.
It had been ages since any man had kissed her. Certainly, it had been ages since any man had truly looked at her beyond the shabby disguise of her plain dresses and hair. That he saw through all of it, that he saw her, did not aid her in remaining unmoved by him. But it was the kiss that was her undoing. Every shred of passion that she’d tamped down, all the yearning and regret that filled her seemed to have come to a head in that one moment.
She wanted nothing more than to throw herself at him, to beg him to touch her again, to kiss her again, to make her feel whole again. But she did none of those things. Instead, she smoothed her skirts and her hair as she struggled to regain her composure.
“If you were seeking to cool my ardor, Mr. Mason, making such wild speculations about my lack of virtue is certainly one way to do so,” she said softly.
“It was not intended as an insult, Miss Masters,” he said. While his tone was not at all apologetic, it was still markedly sincere. “On the contrary… it may surprise you to know that I hold shockingly egalitarian views on carnal relations. If a man has the right to take his pleasure, why should a woman not as well?”
She laughed at that, but it was not a sound of humor or amusement. It was bitter and cold, and far more telling than she would have liked. “Then you are, indeed, a rare man, Mr. Mason. Nonetheless, you have effectively reminded me that my behavior is not as it should be… I will strive to rectify that by taking my leave of you now.”
“Don’t go,” he said. “Not like this.”
“And why should I stay? You, sir, are in no condition to engage in whatever it is you believe was about to happen between us.”
“I had thought to kiss you again, and to talk with you,” he said. “We do not have to be enemies. I have no designs on the title or your mistress’ fortune. I only want her help to find Mary and then I will be gone.”
“And that, Mr. Mason,” Elizabeth said firmly, “is all the reason I need to keep my distance. I won’t be any man’s diversion… not again.”
He started to speak, to urge her to change her mind. It was clearly written in his expression. In a rare stroke of luck, a door opened further down the corridor and a wide-eyed maid emerged, gaping at them both as though they were pugilists ready to do battle.
Taking her cue from the maid’s behavior, Elizabeth perpetuated the charade that they were ready to tear out one another’s throats rather than simply rip away one another’s clothes. “This has been a trying day, Mr. Mason. We’ve allowed our tempers to get the better of us. Excuse me, please. I am quite tired and think I will retire for a bit before dinner.” If her voice trembled and her words came out slightly breathlessly, well, it was hardly worth noting, she reasoned. The maid disappeared down the hall, scurrying away like a scared rat.
“I kissed you for all the wrong reasons,” he said. “The next time I kiss you, it will be for the right ones.”
“There will not be a next time, Mr. Mason,” she vowed.
He smiled. “Of course there will. We both know that. Good evening, Miss Masters. I’ll take my supper in my rooms so you can take comfort in the lies you’ll be telling yourself about that… at least for a little while.”
Elizabeth was not foolish enough to argue the point. She understood the importance of a strategic retreat. Turning on her heel, she didn’t exactly flee, but her steps were much quicker than she would have liked. She wasn’t running from him, but from her own reckless nature, the very one she’d been fighting against since coming to Bath.
*
Branson Middlethorp poured himself a snifter of brandy from the decanter on his desk. He was bone tired and wearier than he’d been in ages. It wasn’t physical exhaustion, but ennui. He had little in his life to provide respite, to provide any semblance of joy.
The house was empty save for servants. With no wife and no children of his own, the void in his life was becoming more and more acute. But he’d had his reasons for refusing to marry. Those reasons stood, even twenty some years on. He’d vowed that there was only one woman who could tempt him to the altar. Sarah had been the love of his life, always unrequited and always from afar. He’d never had the courage to confess his feelings for her. After what his worthless brother had put her through and after all that she had suffered at the hands of his family, any hope in that direction was futile.
Reaching for the stack of correspondence balanced on the edge of the desk, he skimmed through them. His secretary could have done it the following day, but as he had little else to occupy his mind, there was no point in delaying it. Halfway through the stack he paused. One of the letters was marked Bath. For a moment, he let himself entertain the notion that it might be from her, but then he dismissed it. He knew her hand as well as his own and the scrawled letters on the parchment were nothing like the elegant script she favored. It had been twenty-nine years since he’d first laid eyes upon her, twenty-nine years since he’d fallen hopelessly in love with the woman who was betrothed to his own brother. And still, he could not entirely give up on hope. Who would have thought that underneath his gruff exterior, that lurking behind the mask he showed to the world and the horrible things he had done in the name of king and country, beat the heart of a romantic?
Shaking his head, Middlethorp exorcised those thoughts. They were a pointless waste of his time. Besides, he’d already heard from her once in the past week. Short, stilted and filled with thinly veiled hostility, it highlighted that nothing between them had changed and reinforced his belief that it likely never would.
The brief note that had arrived from her only the day before would likely be the last he would hear from her for months. Her simple missive to inform him of the attack on Miss Masters and their subsequent hospitality to her injured rescuer had been curt to the point of rudeness. She despised him because she believed he was cut from the same cloth as his brother had been. Knowing just how cruel his brother could be, he could only imagine what she had suffered at his hands during their marriage.
Forcing himself to put such disturbing thoughts far from his mind, Branson looked back at the piece of parchment and sighed. Calvert, he thought. It would be one of his many spies, as she called them. He’d long since given up taking offense to the sentiment. There was truth in it, after all. He did set spies on her, but it was only for her own protection because her pain and desperation at the loss of her son made her vulnerable. Protecting Sarah, Lady Vale, the widow of his late brother, had been his sworn duty since the day his brother passed, even if she disliked his methods.
The Honorable Mr. Branson Middlethorp, Esquire
Mr. Middlethorp,
Forgive me for writing in such a hurried manner, but I felt it imperative that I inform you at once of her ladyship’s latest escapade. She and her companion have brought home some gentleman—and I assure you, sir, that I fear he is anything but—whom they claim rescued them from footpads outside the establishment of a mystic whom her ladyship chose to visit against my advice.
The gentleman has been shot and has been treated by her ladyship’s personal physicians. On the surface, it would appear to be nothing more than charity and perhaps a sense of obligation, as he was injured while protecting them. But the gentleman is of an age and of a certain physical description, possessing both light-colored eyes and blond hair, that lends me to believe her ladyship may harbor suspicions about the young man’s identity that would be harmful to her.
Your loyal servant,
Calvert
Branson read through the missive once more before cursing and tossing the balled up piece of paper toward the hearth. It was difficult to fault Sarah for her obsession with her lost son. He had no inkling of what she must feel. It had been supremely painful for him to have lost the boy, as he’d doted on his only nephew. But it was hardly the same thing. Still, it did leave her vulnerable to any number of schemes and confidence games. Grief made one an easy target. There was nothing he would not do to protect her and spare her more pain and agony—even if it further cemented her hostility toward him. That had been his primary reason for insisting that she have a companion who reported to him about her continued search for Benedict.
Miss Masters’ primary responsibility in her current position was to keep Sarah from bringing home any stray who claimed to be Benedict. But under the circumstances, if they truly had been set upon by common thieves and the man injured while protecting them, they could hardly have left him to bleed to death in the street.
Rising to his feet, he rang for the butler. When Toombs entered, he looked at the man levelly and, without any hint of the excitement he felt at the prospect of seeing her, he said, “Inform my valet to pack a bag for me and the driver to have the coach readied at dawn. I leave for Bath at the break of day.”
“Certainly, sir,” Toombs said with aplomb before sketching a bow and backing from the room.
He would get to the bottom of this and see to it that she was safe. If it meant he would get to bask in her presence for a few days, that was no one’s business but his own.